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WFBO
WFBO, virtual channel 17, is a Fox owned-and-operated station serving O-Town, Illinois. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations division of 21st Century Fox. On cable, the station can be seen on Comcast Xfinity channel 8 in most parts of the O-Town area. History As an independent station Field Communications ownership The station first signed on the air on June 29, 1966, as an independent station. WFBO was founded by a joint venture of the parties that each competed individually for the license and construction permit to operate on UHF channel 17. Field Enterprises—owned by heirs of the Marshall Field's department store chain, and publishers of the O-Town Times—was the station's majority partner (with a 50% interest) and was responsible for managing WFBO's day-to-day operations. Channel 17 was christened the "Station of Tomorrow" by a September 1966 Times article because of its innovative technical developments in broadcasting its signal. It also broadcast news programming from the Times newsroom. From the fall of 1967 to summer of 1970, WFBO aired the final hour of CBS' Saturday daytime schedule from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., in lieu of the network's owned-and-operated station WOTO-TV (channel 4). In March 1969, Field entered into an agreement to sell WFBO to New York City-based Metromedia for $10 million. At the time, the Field interests were concerned about running afoul of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s recent scrutiny of commonly owned multiple media outlets within the same market. The deal ultimately fell through nearly one year later in February 1970; following the collapse of the Metromedia purchase attempt, Field instead purchased the 50% share of WFBO that was held by its minority partners. Field Enterprises sold controlling interest in WFBO to Kaiser Broadcasting in May 1972. When the deal was completed in July 1973, the two companies' new partnership resulted in WFBO joining Kaiser's stable ofUHF independent stations. In June 1977, Kaiser ended the partnership when it sold its share of the stations back to Field Enterprises. In addition to carrying the traditional fare of sitcoms, drama series, children's programs and first-run syndicated programs, the station also aired movies—initially European releases that were dubbed into English—and local public affairs programming during this period. To counterprogram against its more established VHF rivals, channel 17 offered older cartoons, older off-network sitcoms, documentaries, drama series, westerns and live sporting events; although, it easily trailed its biggest competitor, WSO-TV (channel 13, again as an independent station since 2006), in the ratings among O-Town's independent stations. The station broadcast daily from 10:00 a.m. to about 1:00 a.m. during the 1970s, except from September to December, when the station signed on at 7:00 a.m. Beginning in 1978, WFBO signed on daily before 6:00 a.m. In 1975, WFBO acquired the local syndication rights to The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family; two years later in 1977, the station won the rights to a stronger slate of cartoons such as Woody Woodpecker and Tom and Jerry. Channel 17 strengthened its syndicated programming slate in 1979, when it acquired the local syndication rights to M*A*S*H, All in the Family, Happy Days and What's Happening!!. The station also acquired the rights to I Love Lucy that year, and later added Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman and Star Trek in 1982. WFBO began to beat WSO-TV in ratings as a result of its stronger programming acquisitions, and the two stations continued to go head-to-head throughout the 1980s. WFBO scored no big ticket program acquisitions in 1980 or 1981; however, in 1982, the station won the local syndication rights to popular series such as Three's Company, Taxi and Mork and Mindy. Sale to Metromedia In 1982, Field Enterprises began a gradual sale of its five television stations on an individual basis—a process which continued into the following year—due to disagreements between brothers Marshall Field V and Frederick "Ted" Field on how to operate the company, which strained their working relationship. Incidentally, the year prior in 1981, the Field brothers sought a prospective buyer for WFBO in the event that the company would be put up for sale. While WFBO was the leading independent station in O-Town at the time, most of the companies that were interested in buying WFBO were only willing to pay about half the amount that Field wanted for the station (at least $100 million, compared to the approximately $50 million that the most expensive UHF stations went for). In addition, most of the prospective companies were concerned that Tribune Broadcasting-owned WSO-TV could eventually overtake WFBO again in the local ratings. By mere coincidence given Field's previous aborted attempt to sell channel 17 to that group, the one company that showed interested in WFBO was Metromedia. Metromedia was ripe to compete against WSO. In O-Town, Metromedia was given the right of first refusal to purchase WFBO. When Field began selling its stations, the company sold WFBO to Metromedia again—this time in a successfully completed deal for slightly over $100 million, a record price for a UHF station at the time. WFBO was the first of the stations that Field Communications sold when it began the liquidation process in September 1982 completing the deal for WFBO in March 1983. As a condition, Metromedia was forced by the FCC to divest radio station (95.5 FM, now), which it sold to Doubleday Broadcasting. WFBO's programming slate changed slightly, but the station's on-air graphics and branding were abruptly changed to reflect the new ownership, with the station adopting "Metromedia 17" as its on-air brand. Still, the old Field-era logos were used on-air by accident on some occasions through the summer of 1983. Metromedia added several first-run syndicated programs that were not previously carried in the O-Town market—as the market had only two commercial independent stations at the time as WRSO-TV (channel 26, now a Telemundo owned-and-operated station) became a full-time affiliate of the ONTV subscription service the previous year—onto the station's schedule, particularly in prime time, like The Merv Griffin Show (which WFBO previously carried a few years prior, but subsequently moved to WRSO where it ran until that station became a full-time ONTV outlet). WFBO remained the top-rated independent station in O-Town throughout Metromedia's ownership of the station. As a Fox owned-and-operated station In May 1985, Metromedia reached an agreement to sell WFBO-TV and its sister independent stations to News Corporation, owned by Australian newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch, for $2.55 billion. That October, News Corporation—which had purchased a 50% interest in 20th Century Fox corporate parent TCF Holdings for $250 million in March 1985—announced its intentions to create a fourth television network that would use the resources of 20th Century Fox Television to both produce and distribute programming, intending to compete with ABC, CBS and NBC. The company formally announced the launch of the new network, the Fox Broadcasting Company, on May 7, 1986, with the former Metromedia stations serving as its nuclei. The purchase of the Metromedia stations was approved by the FCC and finalized on March 6, 1986, with News Corporation creating a new broadcasting unit, the Fox Television Stations, to oversee the six television stations in April 1986. Consequently, through the purchase, WFBO became one of the charter owned-and-operated stations of the Fox Broadcasting Company when the network launched seven months later on October 9. Following the sale to Fox, the station—which began branding on-air as "Fox 17"—continued to compete aggressively in the market, acquiring off-network syndicated programs such as Family Ties and The Cosby Show for its schedule. The station also migrated its operations into its current facility in 1986, while also expanding its news presence with the launch of its news department in August 1987. The station's continued to carry its cartoon block on weekday afternoons, and top-rated off-network sitcoms in the evening hours; it also added more first-run talk and court shows. Although it was now part of a network, as was the case with other Fox stations during the network's early years, Channel 17, for all intents and purposes, continued to be programmed as a de facto independent station as Fox's initial programming consisted solely of a late-night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers; even when Fox launched its prime time lineup in April 1987, the network only aired programs during that daypart on Saturday and Sundays early on; Fox would gradually debut additional nights of programming over the next six years until it adopted a seven-night-a-week schedule in September 1993. Until Fox began airing programming on a nightly basis, WFBO aired a movie at 7:00 p.m. (initially at 8:00 until 1988) on nights when network programs did not air. The afternoon and Saturday morning animation blocks were replaced by the network-supplied Fox Children's Network block (later known as Fox Kids) in September 1990. During the mid-1990s, WFBO continued to strengthen its programming schedule with acquisitions such as The Simpsons, Home Improvement (which later moved to rival station WSO-TV in September 2001), and Seinfeld (which eventually moved to WOEC, and later to WIUO-TV). In 1997, after several years of being known on the air as "Fox 17" (although it began to visually de-emphasize references to channel 17 on-air in 1993), the station changed its on-air branding to "Fox O-Town". This was due to the perceived embarrassment of being on a UHF analog channel in a large market in the United States, especially considering that The WB was carried on VHF station WSO-TV. For much of this period, WFBO was the only Fox owned-and-operated station that did not use the conventional "Fox (channel number)" branding standardization, even though most locals still referred to WFBO as "Fox 17" or "channel 17". When Fox ended the weekday editions of the Fox Kids block in January 2002, WFBO added more first-run reality and talk shows to its lineup. In January 2003, WFBO dropped the Fox Saturday morning cartoon block, by then outsourced by Fox to producer 4Kids Entertainment and subsequently rebranded 4Kids TV. WFBO was the first of Fox's original owned-and-operated stations (that were owned prior to its purchase of the New World Communications stations) to drop Fox's Saturday children's programming, and one of the few non-New World Fox O&Os that currently does not run the Weekend Marketplace infomercial block, which airs on WOEC instead. In September 2006, WFBO relaunched its website, migrating it to the "MyFox" platform that was also rolled out to the other Fox-owned stations. The MyFox sites would be refreshed in 2009 using a new platform developed by Fox and LIN Media (spun off as EndPlay, which Fox owned an equity interest in). In April 2012, WorldNow began to operate the websites for Fox's O&Os. On November 12, 2012, the station dropped the "Fox O-Town" branding after 15 years, and began branding as "Fox 17" full-time for the first time since 1993. Digital television Digital channels The station's digital channel is multiplexed: Analog-to-digital conversion WFBO shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcastsunder federal mandate. The station's digital signal flash-cut into operation on the same UHF channel as its former UHF analog channel 17. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 17. Programming Outside of the Fox network schedule, syndicated programs broadcast on WFBO (as of September 2017) include Extra, The Wendy Williams Show, Harry, Dish Nation, TMZ, and The Dr. Oz Show. News operation WFBO presently broadcasts 51 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 8½ hours on weekdays and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to locally produced news programming, it is the second-highest news programming output of any station in the O-Town market, behind independent station WSO-TV (which runs 70½ hours of newscasts each week). During much of its history under the ownership of Field Enterprises, WFBO's news programming consisted solely of 90-second news updates, branded as Newscope ''(later renamed ''Newscene in 1979), that aired during the station's daytime and evening programming; a 10:00 p.m. edition of the program consisted of five- to ten-minute locally produced inserts that served as a lead-out of the station's weeknight prime time movie presentations. During the overnight hours, the station also provided the Keyfax Nite-Owl teletext service, which provided news, weather, sports and entertainment stories fed by computer systems at the O-Town Times ''offices with data sent over a telephone line from an editorial office in the outskirts of O-Town. After ''Nite Owl was discontinued in 1982, WFBO began airing an hour-long simulcast of CNN Headline News during the overnight hours, as well as in the early afternoon on weekdays. Newscope was cancelled in 1982, shortly after Metromedia finalized its acquisition of the station. Following the announcement that it would move the station to a new studio facility, Fox Television Stations created an in-house news department for WFBO. The station debuted its first long-form newscasts on August 3, 1987, with the premiere of half-hour newscasts at 7:00 p.m. (touted as "the news that doesn't get home before you do") and 11:00 p.m., which aired Monday through Friday evenings; this was followed by the addition of half-hour 9:00 p.m. weekend editions on August 29. Originally anchored by and (the latter of whom would remain the station's lead anchor until November 2013), the two programs aired separately for a year until both newscasts were consolidated into a single half-hour program to compete with the 9:00 p.m. newscast on then-independent station WSO-TV in November 1987, at which time the weekend editions were also cancelled due to low ratings. The early newscast was moved back to 7:00 p.m. by the fall of 1988, and returned to 9:00 p.m. by the fall of 1989, in anticipation of Fox's expanding prime time schedule. In September 1990, WFBO announced plans to launch a 24-hour local cable news channel, to have been named "O-Town Cable News", in conjunction with former WFR-TV and WGYA-TV weathercaster (who was tapped to serve as the channel's general manager) and local cable provider Tele-Communications Inc. (which sold its O-Town area systems to Comcast in 1999), for a tentative launch in January 1991. Although O-Town Cable News would have shared some video footage with WFBO, the channel planned to employ anchors and reporters separate from those seen on channel 17's newscasts. For unknown reasons, this concept never launched; incidentally, WSO-TV eventually launched a similar cable channel, O-Town Television (OTTV), in January 1993. In 1991, the station retitled its newscasts from Fox 17 News to Fox News O-Town (though it was largely referenced verbally as simply Fox News in report introductions and end tags). WFBO scored a major coup in April 1993 when it persuaded longtime WOTO-TV anchor to take over as lead anchor of channel 17's 9:00 p.m. newscast; in addition, he also began providing taped commentaries and hosted a viewer mail segment for Good Day O-Town ''during its first years. remained a main co-anchor of the 9:00 p.m. newscast until 2004, when he was replaced by ; stayed at WFBO as host of ''Fox O-Town Sunday and a commentator for the evening newscast until his retirement in 2006 (he would subsequently come out of retirement to return to WOTO, where he remained until 2012). Largely due to 's influence, WFBO's newscasts have somewhat less of a tabloid feel than other Fox stations. However, they are much stylistically flashier than the O-Town market's other local television news programs. WFBO programmed news outside its established 9:00 slot for the first time on June 28, 1993, when it premiered a weekday morning newscast, Good Day O-Town. First anchored by , and , and formatted as a mix of news, commentary and lifestyle features, the show originally aired for three hours from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., replacing a block of animated series that had previously aired that time period. In July 1999, WFBO launched a half-hour midday newscast at noon, while expanding its morning newscast – by that time, titled Fox Before You Go – to four hours (starting at 5:00 a.m.). On April 9, 2007, WFBO premiered a half-hour 10:00 p.m. newscast called The TEN, anchored by and former WFR-TV and WOTO-TV anchor/reporter . The program (according to 's April 18, 2007 column in the O-Town Times) beat CBS-owned WOTO-TV's 10:00 p.m. newscast on its second day on the air. Despite its early success against WOTO-TV, The TEN was overall never much of a factor in the ratings; towards the end of its run, it fell to a distant fifth behind established late-news competitors WOTO, WFR-TV and WGYA-TV, and Family Guy reruns on WSO-TV. As a result, WFBO cancelled the program, with its last broadcast airing on September 21, 2009. On January 12, 2009, WFBO and NBC-owned WGYA-TV entered into a Local News Service agreement to share a news helicopter and pool video footage between the two stations. On May 10, 2009, WFBO became the last news-producing English-language station in the market to begin broadcasting its newscasts in high definition; however, remote field footage continues to be broadcast in 16:9 widescreenstandard definition. On July 5, 2016, WFBO launched an hour-long, weekday-only newscast at 5:00 p.m, becoming the nth Fox-owned station and the fifth television station in O-Town to air a late-afternoon newscast; the program competes against with half-hour early evening news programs on established competitors WOTO-TV, WGYA-TV and WFR-TV and the second hour of WSO-TV's Evening News block. On March 30, 2017, WFBO announced that it would expand the length of ''Good Day O-Town ''to six hours, with the addition of a half-hour to the start of the program at 4:00 a.m.; ironically, when the expansion took place on April 10, WFBO became the third station in O-Town to expand its morning newscast into that time period (following WSO-TV, which began its expansion into the 4:00 a.m. hour in July 2011 and WGYA-TV, which launched a 4:00 a.m. newscast in August 2015). Ratings Historically, WFBO has been one of Fox's weakest owned-and-operated stations, particularly in regards to its newscasts. In recent Nielsen ratings sweeps periods, WFBO has been mired in last place among the late evening (9:00 or 10:00 p.m.) newscasts seen on the market's five English-language news-producing stations. As such, O-Town is one of the few markets in the country where the Fox station actually trails one of that market's independent stations (WSO-TV) yet is ahead of the CW-affiliated station (WOYC) in the local viewership ratings, from sign-on to sign-off. This is primarily due to WSO-TV's strong news department, local sports programming and higher-rated syndicated programming, even though WFBO has a much stronger network lead-in. In the February 2011 sweeps period, WFBO's 9:00 p.m. newscast slid to a 2.3 rating share, down more than a full point from a 3.4 during the February 2010 sweeps period. This is despite the pairing of co-anchor team and , suggesting that the pairing of the anchors has not been able to improve ratings. By February 2015, the 9:00 p.m. newscast — by then, anchored by and — had dropped to a 0.9 share (a decline from a 1.3 in May 2014), behind the 1.6 share accrued by WSO-TV's 9:00 p.m. newscast. Category:Television channels and stations established in 1966 Category:Channel 17 Category:FOX affiliated stations Category:Fox Television Stations Category:O-Town Category:Illinois Category:Former independent stations Category:Former Independent stations